Biodiversity, Dollars and Social Sense

Biodiversity, Dollars and Social Sense

GDP is too narrow a measure of national wealth. Environmental and social progress should be included too

by

John Palmer

India's decision to publish measurements of the changes - positive and negative - in its "natural wealth"
including its plant, water and other environmental resources is a
development of global significance. In future this index of
environmental sustainability will be published alongside and, by
implication, qualify conventional measurements of gross domestic
product. Brazil is also moving in the same direction as it prepares to
implement the finding of a three-year report into the economics of biosystems and biodiversity.

Across
the world dissatisfaction with the absolute priority given to
conventional GDP measurements of economic progress is turning into
growing demand for a more holistic way of valuing and measuring economic
activity. GDP as the sole criterion of economic success by itself gives
a dangerously unbalanced and distorted picture of economic priorities
and progress. Last year Kazakhstan topped the league table for GDP
growth but what does that tell us about the underlying values of the
Kazakh economic model?

In the European Union there is a growing chorus of expert reports
from the European parliament as well as the European commission and
other international bodies, and respected economists such as Professor Joseph Stiglitz.
They all insist that GDP needs to be qualified by parallel measures of
the impact of economic change on sustainable development and on the
social cohesion or "human satisfaction".

The demand for a
radically different way of valuing economic policy and assessing
economic progress comes in the midst of the greatest post-second world
war crisis in world capitalism. Governments almost everywhere are
looking to reduce budget deficits at the expense of existing standards
of social and welfare provision and protection of our threatened
planetary environment.

The immediate debate among policymakers is
between those who argue for immediate and radical reductions in budget
deficits - even at the expense of longstanding social and environmental
standards - and those who insist that the big cuts in public expenditure
should be delayed until there are clearer signs of economic recovery.
The evidence for sustained economic recovery or a clear pick up in
employment is scant to non-existent at present. Indeed a growing number
of experts are warning of a very weak, jobless recovery, or even a
"double-dip" recession.

But the more profound challenge is how to
place environmental sustainability and social cohesion at the heart of
policymaking so they do not become increasingly powerless lobbies on the
margins of decision-making. For that the European Union and its member
states should follow India and Brazil's lead and abandon their almost
exclusive emphasis on GDP as the be-all and end-all of economic policy
objectives. The time has come if not to replace GDP at least to balance
it with parallel socially and environmentally responsible measures of
economic progress.

Exclusive reliance on a narrow measure of GDP
is an ideological choice made by politicians and those in business and
finance whose interests are regarded always as paramount. A decision to
broaden economic objectives by bringing in measurement of sustainability
and social cohesion to the heart of policymaking would mark a
sea-change in political and economic priorities.

This is not, as
some might imagine, a purely "technical" change but a political shift of
focus of great importance. It comes as governments in the western
so-called "advanced economies", while paying lip-service to the
environment and social "fairness", refuse to adopt wider measures of
sustainability and social justice to qualify GDP goals. They fear that
to do so would risk them becoming more visibly accountable for policies
that threaten the environment or increase social inequality.

This
wider measure of economic progress would highlight the enormous
investment opportunities which exist to strengthen our environmental and
social infrastructures and offer a more constructive way to achieve
long-term reduction in budget deficits. Widening the basic measure of
economic activity by prioritizing human and environmental imperatives
could transform the terms of the debate on how to respond to the
economic crisis.

Further

Lord, what would John Lennon have made of the Trump monster? Marking Thursday's 36th anniversary of Lennon's murder, Yoko Ono posted a plea for gun control, calling his death "a hollowing experience" and pleading, "Together, let's bring back America, the green land of Peace." With so many seeking solace in these ugly times, mourns one fan, "Oh John, you really should be here." Lennon conceded then, and likely would now, "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."